The Colonists are ... equally entitled with yourselves to all the natural rights of mankind, and the peculiar privileges of Englishmen.
William Pitt
He at once breathed his own lofty spirit into the Country he served, as he communicated something of his own grandeur to the men who served him.
“No man,” said a soldier of the time, “ever entered Mr. Pitt’s closet, who did not feel himself braver when he came out, than when he went in.”
John Richard Green
He stands in the annals of Europe, “an illustrious and venerable name,” admired by countrymen and strangers, by all to whom loftiness of moral principle and greatness of talent are objects of regard.
Thomas Carlyle
William Pitt was born in England, November 15, 1708
Created Earl of Chatham, 1766
He died May 11, 1778
He was known “as the Great Commoner,” while in the House of Commons; as “Chatham,” after he entered the House of Lords; and as “the Elder Pitt,” to distinguish him from his son William Pitt, called “the Younger,” who likewise was a great statesman.
There are American towns and cities named in honour of William Pitt, our Defender; among them, Pittsburgh, Penn.; Chatham, N. Y.; and Pittsfield, Mass.
THIS TERRIBLE CORNET OF HORSE
In the hilt of Napoleon’s ceremonial sword, was set a huge diamond, one of the largest in the world. It had been brought from India by “Diamond Pitt” of England, who had sold it to the Regent of France.
“Diamond Pitt,” was Thomas Pitt. An adventurous young sailor, he had gone to India, and had started in business for himself as a trader.
The British East India Company claimed the monopoly of trade in India. When the bold young Englishman, without so much as “by your leave,” started an opposition business, the Company determined to crush him.
It set its powerful legal machinery to work. But it was one thing to try to crush Thomas Pitt, and quite another thing to do it. He fought desperately for his rights. Though he was arrested and fined he still kept on trading, in defiance of the Company. He battled so successfully and for so many years, that at last for its own protection, the Company was forced to take him into its service.
He rose to be Governor of Madras. He became known as “Diamond Pitt,” because he was always in search of large diamonds. Thus he procured the famous “Pitt Diamond,” which found its way into Napoleon’s sword.
With a part of the fortune which “Diamond Pitt” got from its sale, he bought an estate in England. Later he became a member of Parliament.
“Diamond Pitt’s” grandson, William Pitt, was not a strong boy. He spent much time with his books. He liked to read Shakespeare aloud to the family. He enjoyed reading the FaËry Queen, in which the Red Cross Knight, fearless of harm or evil thing, rides about rescuing the innocent and helpless.
Though he was not strong in body, William Pitt had an iron will. He had “Diamond Pitt’s” indomitable courage and the fighting qualities with which the sailor had matched his strength against that of the powerful East India Company.
William Pitt attended Oxford University. When he was twenty-three, he was commissioned Cornet of Horse in the King’s Blues.
The fearless Cornet of Horse was soon elected to the House of Commons. He started his political career in the House with a fiery, sarcastic speech supporting the Prince of Wales, who was at enmity with the King his father.
William Pitt was a born orator. He was tall, elegant, and graceful. His eyes were bright and piercing. He spoke with dignified gesture. And he delivered this speech with such strength, magnetism, and irony, that the Prime Minister exclaimed, “We must muzzle this terrible Cornet of Horse!”
To muzzle him, he tried, at first with promises of reward. But William Pitt was incorruptible. He would not sell his honour. Then influence was brought to bear, and the young Cornet of Horse was dismissed from the army.
But this very act, by which his enemies planned to muzzle William Pitt, brought him before the public eye. His fearlessness and remarkable oratory advanced him daily with both Parliament and People.
In time, William Pitt became a leading power, at first in the House of Commons, and afterward, when he was created Earl of Chatham, in the House of Lords. He served twice as Prime Minister of England; and he laid the solid foundations of the British Colonial Empire.
But more than all else, he was an Englishman defending the unalienable rights of all Englishmen. He steadfastly combated those political evils in the British Government, which, at that time, were threatening to undermine English Liberty as set down in the Magna Carta and safeguarded by the English Constitution.
THE CHARTER OF LIBERTY
The Signing of the Magna Carta, 1215
O Thou, that sendest out the man
To rule by land and sea,
Strong mother of a Lion-line,
Be proud of those strong sons of thine,
Who wrenched their rights from thee!
What wonder if in noble heat,
Those men thine arms withstood,
Retaught the lesson thou hadst taught,
And in thy spirit with thee fought fought—
Who sprang from English blood!
Alfred Tennyson (Condensed)
Magna Carta! The Great Charter of the liberties of Englishmen!
At Runnimede, the freemen of England through the action of their Barons, forced King John to sign and seal the Magna Carta. His tyrannous power was torn from him. He was forced to pledge himself to violate no longer the rights and privileges of English freemen.
For, from times remote, human rights and liberties, protecting them from oppression by rulers, had been theirs by laws and by common consent.
About a hundred years after the signing of the Magna Carta, the great principle, that English freemen should not be taxed without representation, was established.
When King Charles the First broke his promises to respect the rights of his subjects, he was tried and executed. When King James the Second governed in despotic manner, exercising what he believed to be the “divine right of Kings,” he lost his throne.
What has this to do with America and William Pitt? Everything!
During the reigns of the Stuart Kings, large sections of America were explored and settled by English freemen, who came to America to escape persecution, and to enjoy English Liberty which at that time they could not possibly have had in England.
The Stuart Kings believed in “divine right,” which means that the King is the Lord’s annointed, and that neither Parliament nor People may question any of his acts; and that no matter how cruel or tyrannous a King may be, the People must submissively obey him.
The Magna Carta and the English Constitution protect the English People against this doctrine of “divine right.”
So, when during the reign of these Kings, men and women fled from England to find Liberty and refuge in America, they brought with them their ancient institutions, the rights and privileges guaranteed them under the Magna Carta.
There were other Englishmen equally courageous, equally liberty-loving, who came to seek their fortunes and build homes in the New World. They, too, brought with them their rights and privileges.
These English pioneers hewed their way through the savage wilderness. Many of them were massacred by Red Men, while their homes were burned; some of them were carried into captivity and tortured. Yet the great body of undaunted English settlers, resolutely kept on pushing their frontiers westward. They laid out farms and plantations, they built villages and towns, they founded churches and schools. They obtained charters from far away England, confirming their rights. And through God’s blessing they prospered, and became strong and rich.
Other liberty-loving folk, the Dutch, settled in great numbers in what is now New York and New Jersey; while many settlers from different parts of Europe, came to the New World to build homes for themselves and their children.
The very air of America breathed freedom. The magnitude of the country and the difficulties of pioneer-life helped to invigorate, expand, and make indomitable those ideals of English Liberty which the first settlers and frontiersmen had brought with them.
When King George the Third inherited the British Crown, he was unable to understand the free spirit of Englishmen. And he was far from realizing its tremendous growth in the New World.
He taxed the Americans without representation. He placed a standing army in the Colonies, without their consent. He blockaded the Port of Boston to force her to submit to his unjust laws. In some cases, trial by jury was abolished. These are some of his tyrannous violations of the rights and privileges of English freemen.
The People of America, in indignation, petitioned the King for redress.
There was no redress.
So the People of America rose in arms; and, in the true spirit of Magna Carta, they issued the Declaration of Independence.
Now, we shall see what William Pitt had to do with all this.
AMERICA’S DEFENDER
“For the defence of Liberty, upon a general principle, upon a constitutional principle, it is a ground on which I stand firm, on which I dare meet any man.”
“This Country had no right under Heaven to tax America! It is contrary to all the principles of justice and civil policy.”
“If I were an American,” he exclaimed, “as I am an Englishman, while a foreign troop was landed in my Country, I never would lay down my arms—never—never—never!”
William Pitt, Earl of Chatham
It was natural that an English statesman who sincerely and firmly believed in the rights of all Englishmen, should become the defender of America. And her loyal friend and champion was William Pitt. By the weight of his eloquent speeches, he fought her battles in Parliament.
When the Stamp Act was passed, he was absent from his place in Parliament, because of illness. But later, he was present. Leaning on his crutch, for he was still very sick, he indignantly arraigned the British Ministry which had brought about the passage of the Act.
“When the resolution was taken in this House to tax America,” he said, “I was ill in bed. If I could have endured to have been carried in my bed, so great was the agitation of my mind for the consequences, I would have solicited some kind hand to have laid me down on this floor, to have borne my testimony against it!
“The Colonists are the subjects of this Kingdom, equally entitled with yourselves to all the natural rights of mankind and the peculiar privileges of Englishmen; equally bound by its laws, and equally participating in the Constitution of this free Country. The Americans are the sons ... of England!”
And when one of the members made a speech abusing the Americans, defending the Stamp Act, and accusing Pitt of sowing sedition among the American Colonists, he rose and answered:—
“The gentleman tells us,” he said, “America is obstinate; America is almost in open rebellion. I rejoice that America has resisted. Three millions of people so dead to all the feelings of Liberty, as voluntarily to let themselves be made slaves, would have been fit instruments to make slaves of all the rest.
“In a good cause, on a sound bottom, the force of this Country can crush America to atoms. I know the valour of your troops, I know the skill of your officers.... But on this ground,—on the Stamp Act—when so many here will think it a crying injustice, I am one who will lift up my hands against it!
“In such a cause, even your success would be hazardous. America, if she fell, would fall like the strong man. She would embrace the pillars of the State, and pull down the Constitution along with her.
“Is this your boasted peace? To sheathe the sword, not in its scabbard, but in the bowels of your Countrymen?
“Upon the whole, I will beg leave to tell the House what is really my opinion. It is that the Stamp Act be repealed absolutely, totally, and immediately.”[2]
. . . . . . . . . .
And whether the Stamp Act was repealed “absolutely, totally, and immediately,” John Fiske tells in his thrilling history, “The American Revolution.”
THE SONS OF LIBERTY
William Pitt was not the only English statesman who championed America. There was Lord Rockingham, at one time Prime Minister of England, also the Earl of Camden, and the celebrated Charles James Fox.
And there was Edmund Burke, “one of the earliest friends of America,” with his scratch wig, round spectacles, and pockets stuffed with papers. He pleaded our cause so brilliantly that his hearers were dazzled by his oratory “with its passionate ardour, its poetic fancy, its amazing prodigality of resources, the dazzling succession in which irony, pathos, invective, tenderness, the most brilliant word-pictures, the coolest arguments, followed each other.”
And among America’s British friends, was Colonel BarrÉ, a member of the House of Commons. In an indignant speech against the Stamp Act, he referred to the American Patriots as “Sons of Liberty.”
When his speech reached America, the name “Sons of Liberty” was adopted by secret societies pledged to resist the Stamp Act.
In Boston, the Sons of Liberty held meetings under the Liberty Tree, a huge elm; they met also in Faneuil Hall, since called “the Cradle of American Liberty.” In New York City, the Sons of Liberty erected a tall Liberty Pole, and defended it against the Red Coats.
All over the Country, the Sons of Liberty were active, sometimes too violently so, in the cause of American Independence.
A LAST SCENE
In 1778, a dramatic event took place in the House of Lords.
William Pitt, old now and wasted by disease, but the fire of whose genius still burned bright and clear, was about to speak.
France had acknowledged the Independence of the United States. Germany was planning to do so; while Spain stood ready to enter into an alliance with the Americans. England was at war with France. The situation of England seemed desperate.
And on that dramatic day in the House of Lords, the Duke of Richmond was about to move that the royal fleets and armies should be instantly withdrawn from America, and peace be made on whatever terms Congress might see fit to accept.
But William Pitt would not willingly consent to a step that seemed certain to wreck the Empire his genius had won for England.
He had got up from his sick bed, and had come into the House of Lords to argue against the motion.
Wrapped in flannel bandages, and leaning upon crutches, his dark eyes in their brilliancy enhancing the pallor of his careworn face, as he entered the House, supported on the one side by his son-in-law, and on the other by that younger son who was so soon to add fresh glory to the name of William Pitt, the peers all started to their feet, and remained standing until he had taken his place.
In broken sentences, with strange flashes of the eloquence which had once held captive ear and heart, he protested against the hasty adoption of a measure which simply prostrated the dignity of England before its ancient enemy, the House of Bourbon.
The Duke of Richmond’s answer, reverently and delicately worded, urged that while the magic of Chatham’s name could work anything short of miracles, yet only a miracle could now relieve them from the dire necessity of abandoning America.
Chatham rose to reply, but his overwrought frame gave way, and he sank in a swoon upon the floor.
All business was at once adjourned. The peers, with eager sympathy, came crowding up to offer assistance, and the unconscious statesman was carried in the arms of his friends to a house near by, whence in a few days he was removed to his home.
There, after lingering between life and death for several weeks, on the 11th of May, and in the seventieth year of his age, Lord Chatham breathed his last.
The man thus struck down like a soldier at his post, was one whom Americans, no less than Englishmen, have delighted to honour.
John Fiske (Retold)
